The Unseen Guest 2

The Unseen Guest 2

When I was nine, my brother—Milo—could have won an Oscar for the sheer theatricality of his imagination. He’d march around the kitchen in a cape made of old dish towels, proclaiming himself “Sir Milo, Defender of the Lost Socks.” Then, as if on cue, he’d turn to the empty corner of the living room and whisper conspiratorial greetings to a “friend” named Jasper.

I laughed. I fed the joke. I pretended to hear a muffled “Yo, big sis!” echo from the air. It was easy to tuck an imaginary friend into the seams of a child’s world—just another harmless, colorful thread in the fabric of play.

It wasn’t until the night of the rainstorm that I realized the thread might have been a rope.

It started with a knock—soft, rhythmic, like a fingernail tapping on glass. I was half-asleep, the storm’s percussion drumming the windows, when I heard it. I turned my head toward the hallway, expecting a neighbor or a stray cat seeking shelter. The hallway was empty. A single coat hook held a drenched jacket; the only sound was the hiss of the radiator.

I shrugged and went back to my pillow, telling myself the house was settling, the pipes were singing. Then came the second knock—louder, more insistent. This time even Milo, who was supposed to be snoring like a freight train in his room, sat up with a start. He stared at the empty doorway, eyes wide, and whispered, “He’s here.”

“The—what?” I mumbled, already feeling a knot tighten at my ribs.

“Milo’s talking to him again,” he said, voice trembling. “Jasper says he’s scared.”

The name hung in the air like a misprinted street sign. I glanced at Milo’s nightstand. There, among the glow-in-the-dark dinosaurs and a half‑finished puzzle, lay a small notebook. Its pages were filled with drawings: stick figures, scribbled castles, and a single, consistent outline—a boy about Milo’s age, always wearing a navy blue hoodie, always standing slightly behind a door.

I flipped to the last entry. The date was two days ago. The words were cramped, as if written with a crayon too big for the page:

Jasper: “Can you bring me the key? I’m stuck behind the door. Mom says I’m not real, but I can see you. Please, don’t leave.”

My stomach dropped. I stared at the page, feeling the room’s temperature dip a degree, the storm outside turning from patter to roar.

The second knock had stopped. I rose, heart thudding, and padded down the hallway to Milo’s room. The door was ajar, the gap wide enough to see the faint silhouette of a boy sitting cross‑legged on the floor, hoodie pulled up, his knees hugged to his chest. He didn’t look up when I entered.

“Hey,” I said, trying to sound casual, “who’s this?”

He lifted his head slowly. The face was pale, eyes too deep for a child—like a photograph pressed against a window, the glass smudged with raindrops. He opened his mouth, but no sound came out. Instead, the very air around him seemed to tremble, as if a wind had been held captive in a bottle and then let loose.

Milo’s voice cracked. “He’s Jasper! He told me you wouldn’t believe him. He says… he says we have to find the key.”

My mind raced. “Key to what?” I asked, though the answer felt already known.

Jasper’s gaze drifted to the old wooden chest in the corner of Milo’s room—one we’d never opened. It was a relic from our parents’ attic, a battered cedar box bolted shut with rusted hinges. When I was little, I’d tried to pry it open, but the latch was stubborn. My mother told us it held “old things we don’t need.”

The boy’s eyes widened. He lifted a trembling hand, half‑reaching toward the chest, then stopped, as if caught by an invisible rope. He looked at me, then at Milo, and the air seemed to thicken, the sounds of rain muffling.

“You… you’re saying… he’s stuck inside?” I asked, voice barely above a whisper.

Milo nodded, his small body shaking. “He cried last night. Said he can’t go out. He always says ‘I’m cold.’”

The room’s temperature dropped further, a chill crawling up my spine. I felt the hair at the back of my neck rise to life as if a phantom breeze had brushed my ear.

“Okay,” I said, more to convince myself than anyone else. “Let’s find the key.”

We rummaged through the attic that night, the house groaning under the weight of the storm. The attic was a tomb of forgotten Christmas decorations, old suitcases, and cobwebs that looked like spun silver in the flash of our flashlight. We dug through a box of my dad’s old fishing gear, overturned a dusty trunk that smelled of cedar and mothballs, and finally, in a cracked leather satchel, we found a small brass key, tarnished but unmistakable.

I held it up to the light. It was tiny—no bigger than a thumbtack. As soon as we stepped back into Milo’s room, the boy in the hoodie’s expression shifted. Relief flickered through his eyes, and the air warmed by a degree. He lifted his hand, his fingers brushing the chest’s lock as if testing a surface.

Milo whispered, “He says thank‑you.”

The key slipped into the lock with a sigh that sounded like a sigh through old wood. The lid creaked open, revealing a bundle of old newspaper clippings, a faded photograph of a boy in a navy hoodie, and a small wooden toy soldier. The photograph was dated 1979. The boy in it bore a striking resemblance to Milo’s friend—same crooked smile, same hoodie, same eyes that seemed to look through the camera like they were searching for something.

The old newspaper articles were about a missing child, “Jasper Miller,” who had vanished from the town’s elementary school a month ago. The story ended abruptly, with no further details, the case cold as the rain outside.

Milo’s eyes widened. “That’s him,” he breathed.

I felt a lump rise in my throat. “Milo, I—”

The boy in the hoodie stood abruptly, his form beginning to flicker like a candle flame in a draft. He turned to us, his mouth forming words that vibrated more in the air than in sound.

“Thank you,” he said, voice a soft echo. “I can finally go.”

A wind swirled through the room, picking up the loose papers, scattering them like snow. The storm outside reached a climax, thunder rolling like a drumbeat. As the light from the attic window flickered, the boy’s outline dimmed, his hoodie becoming transparent. He lifted his hand in a farewell, and the air that had been cold turned warm, the weight of the unseen presence lifting.

“The key… it was for the chest, but also for… for letting you out?” Milo asked, voice trembling.

I nodded, tears prickling my eyes. “He was… he was real, Milo. He was stuck, and you helped him.”

Milo hugged the chest, his tiny arms squeezing it as if it were a life raft. “I’ll never forget Jasper.”

The storm finally let go. Rain ceased, the wind hushed, and a faint scent of wildflowers drifted through the open window, as if from somewhere far beyond our house. The night air felt clean, bright, and the house settled into a quiet, comforting stillness.

In the days that followed, Milo stopped talking to Jasper. The notebook remained open on his nightstand, the last entry now a simple line: “Jasper is gone, but I’ll keep his key.” He tucked the key into his pocket, and sometimes, when I caught a glimpse of the tiny brass piece glinting in the light, I felt a smile tug at my lips.

I never told Mom and Dad about the “friend” that was not just a figment of a child’s imagination. They’d have thought it a story, a bedtime tale spun from a child’s wild mind. But the key, still warm in Milo’s palm, was proof enough that some things—some friendships—stretch beyond the borders of what we can see, slipping through the cracks of reality, waiting for a willing heart to unlock the door.